Claines (St. John the Baptist)
The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £175; patron and impropriator, Sir Offley Penbury Wakeman, Bart.: the glebe consists of 21 acres in the parish of Hanbury, purchased by a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty. The tithes have been commuted for about £1000 per annum. The church has been recently renovated and repaired, the galleries enlarged, and the porch rebuilt. A chapel, dedicated to St. George, was erected in 1830, at a cost of £3345, in the early English style, with a tower; and from the want of sufficient accommodation for the increasing population, it is expected that another chapel will be shortly built at Fernall Heath. Some schools are supported; and a fund of about £35 per annum, arising from bequests, is applied to the purchase of clothing, bread, &c., for the poor. On Elbury Hill is the site of a Roman camp, which completely overlooked and would defend the city of Worcester: this camp appears to have been first described by Mr. Allies in his Antiquities of Worcester. A remarkable relic of Roman-British antiquity, supposed to have been used as a torque or ornament worn round the neck, was lately found at Perdiswell, the seat of Sir O. P. Wakeman; and other relics have been discovered in the parish.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.